Saturday, June 13, 2009

Galaxy December 1953





Fairly nice issue with pretty good stories, no stinkers or really badly old-fashionable ones here.
The Dark Door • novelette by Alan E. Nourse
A man feels he is chased by invincible and unseen enemy, or special breed of men who can see in forth dimension. Is he paranoid, or who is paranoid and in what way? Fairly average "invasion" story. ***
One Man's Poison • shortstory by Robert Sheckley
A spaceship has run out of food. Luckily the crew finds a planet with a huge warehouse. Unluckily they can read the descriptions of contents of the packages only in fairly limited way, and there is some trouble knowing just what is edible and what is not. Ok, but maybe a bit easily and conveniently solved puzzle-story. ***1/2
Mr. Costello, Hero • novelette by Theodore Sturgeon
A very polite gentleman makes suggestions, and is able to get some strange suggestions through. McCarthy cautionary tale with blatantly obvious collaterals. Fairly well written, but works only if the narrator and 99% everyone else are total idiots. Also, future with spaceships, where compact sound recording and sound editing are novel concepts? ***+
Hall of Mirrors • shortstory by Fredric Brown
A man is transplanted from friends swimming pool to dark closet. Outside of the closet there is a strange room with unfamiliar objects and a letter on the table. The letter contains the key to the puzzle. Saying that the story is about time travel is a slight spoiler, or not even so slight as there are hardly any real surprises to be found in the plot after knowing that.***+

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